LLM·Dex
Newsletter

Sonar Pro vs Yi-Lightning

A complete head-to-head: pricing, context window, benchmarks, modality coverage, and openness, with a programmatic verdict synthesized from the underlying data.

Updated

Sonar Pro specs · Yi-Lightning specs
Verdict by category
  • PriceYi-Lightning

    Yi-Lightning is roughly 107.1× cheaper on output tokens ($0.14 vs $15.00 per 1M).

  • Context windowSonar Pro

    Sonar Pro accepts 200K tokens vs 16K, 12.5× the room for long documents and codebases.

  • BenchmarksTie

    No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores.

  • ModalitiesTie

    Both handle text.

  • OpennessTie

    Both are closed-weight, API-only.

It's a genuine coin-flip between Sonar Pro and Yi-Lightning: 1 category wins each, with the rest tied. Yi-Lightning is roughly 107.1× cheaper on output tokens ($0.14 vs $15.00 per 1M). Sonar Pro accepts 200K tokens vs 16K, 12.5× the room for long documents and codebases.

No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores. Both target the same set of modalities (text), so the deciding factors are price, context, and raw quality. Both are closed-weight, API-only.

Sonar Pro is the newer of the two, released 3 months after Yi-Lightning, which usually means a more recent knowledge cutoff and updated safety post-training. Sonar Pro is usually picked for research agent and rag workloads, while Yi-Lightning sees more deployments in chinese llm and cheapest llm. If pricing matters more than every last benchmark point, run the numbers in the calculator below before committing.

Side-by-side specs

SpecSonar ProYi-Lightning
ProviderPerplexityOther
ReleasedJan 2025Oct 2024
Modalitiestexttext
Context window200K tokens16K tokens
Max output,,
Input · 1M$3.00 / 1M tokens$0.14 / 1M tokens
Output · 1M$15.00 / 1M tokens$0.14 / 1M tokens
Knowledge cutoff,,
Open weightsNoNo
API availableYesYes

Pricing at scale

What you'd actually pay at typical workloads. Numbers come from each model's published per-million-token rates.

  • Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day$31.50 vs $0.630
  • Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day$315 vs $6.30
  • RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day$540 vs $21.84

Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day: $31.50 vs $0.630 per month, model B comes out ahead. Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day: $315 vs $6.30 per month, model B comes out ahead. RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day: $540 vs $21.84 per month, model B comes out ahead.

Price calculator

Estimated spend for the listed models at your usage. Numbers are derived from each model's published per-million-token rates.

  • Sonar Pro$1.05
  • Yi-Lightning$0.021

Benchmarks compared

Only sourced numbers. Where a benchmark is missing for one model we show the available value rather than fabricating the other.

Benchmark scores not yet available. We only publish numbers we can source from official model cards or independent leaderboards, see methodology.
Pick Sonar Pro if

Sonar Pro fits when…

  • Multi-step web search
  • Deep research output
  • Citations
  • Long-context tasks, handles 200K tokens vs 16K for Yi-Lightning.
Pick Yi-Lightning if

Yi-Lightning fits when…

  • Cheap
  • Strong Chinese
  • Fast
  • Cost-sensitive workloads, 107.1× cheaper than Sonar Pro on output tokens.
Don't want either?

Consider Sonar Large

Perplexity's flagship answer-engine model with built-in web search grounding.

See Sonar Large specsSonar Pro vs Sonar LargeYi-Lightning vs Sonar Large

Frequently asked

  • Is Sonar Pro or Yi-Lightning cheaper?
    Yi-Lightning is cheaper at $0.14 / 1M tokens per million output tokens, vs $15.00 / 1M tokens for Sonar Pro.
  • Which has the larger context window?
    Sonar Pro accepts 200K tokens vs 16K for Yi-Lightning.
  • Is Sonar Pro or Yi-Lightning better for coding?
    Both Sonar Pro and Yi-Lightning are competitive on coding benchmarks. See each model's individual spec page for HumanEval and SWE-bench scores where published. For an opinionated pick, consult our Best LLM for Coding ranking.
  • Are either of these models open source?
    Neither model ships open weights, both are accessible only via their respective providers' APIs.
  • When were Sonar Pro and Yi-Lightning released?
    Sonar Pro was released by Perplexity on 2025-01-21. Yi-Lightning was released by Other on 2024-10-16.
Friday digest

The week's AI launches, in your inbox.

One short email every Friday, new models, leaks, and quietly-shipped APIs you missed.